Socrates Quotes

Democritus maintains that there can be no great poet without a spite of madness.

I soon realized that poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say.

Art is not delivered like the morning paper; it has to be stolen from Mount Olympus.

Everything we think of as great has come to us from neurotics. It is they and they alone who found religions and create great works of art. The world will never realize how much it owes to them and what they have suffered in order to bestow their gifts on it.

If anyone comes to the gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet by acquiring expert knowledge of the subject without the Muses' madness, he will fail, and his self-controlled verses will be eclipsed by the poetry of men who have been driven out of their minds.

Of all the arts poetry (which owes its origin almost entirely to genius and will least be guided by precept or example) maintains the first rank.

I believe in dreams. People should have faith in the songs poets sing.

Let us leave to the brain what belongs to it, and agree that the work of the men of genius is of the superhuman, the offspring of man.

The muses are ghosts, and sometimes they come uninvited.

The adventure of composition is a mystery. The muse has her ways, she hides from you, comes for you in the middle of the night, at midday, at dawn. You must believe wholeheartedly in this divine power. Its an elusive gift that can appear at any time, anywhere. Artists are in awe of it.

The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.

My discussion with Keith Richards about the creative process led me to believe that there's an invisible presence of a stream of ever-flowing creativity that we overhear-all you have to do is pull up the antenna and dial it in. This presence allows you to maintain your sense of origin and move forward.

Mental illness and creativity are - it's a thin line in between the two. I tend to believe that.

The artist's life nourishes itself on the particular, the concrete.

Let those who drink not, but austerely dine, dry up in law; the Muses smell of wine.

I don't believe in writer's block. I don't know what that is. There are just certain little areas that I know I'm going to get through. It's just a matter of finding a way.

You've got to believe in yourself, or no one will believe in you. Imagination is like a bird on the wing, flying free for you to use.

The Muses were dumb while Apollo lectured.

I don't believe in originality in art. I think we exist on this earth to inspire each other, through our actions, through our deeds, and through who we are. We're always borrowing.

Alekhine is a poet who creates a work of art out of something that would hardly inspire another man to send home a picture post card.

A GREAT PAINTER will know a great deal about how he did it, but still he will say, “How did I do it?

First thought is best in Art, second in other matters.

The science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry is another thing. The poet to-day, notwithstanding all the discoveries of science, and the accumulated learning of mankind, enjoys no advantage over Homer.

All great art comes from a sense of outrage.

You must believe: a poem is a holy thing - a good poem, that is. The poem, even a short time after being written, seems no miracle; unwritten, it seems something beyond the capacity of the gods.